We ended up spending two nights at the Dismal Swamp Visitor Center wall. We finally got the boat totally squared away. We spent the first night at the dock alone but the second night two other boats joined us. We learned that a third boat would have been there but they had the same problem we had with the duckweed in the engine cooling system. Apparently that captain isn’t as resourceful as Bill, they had spent the night stopped in the middle of the canal waiting for Tow Boat US to come get them in the morning. One of the boats that shared the dock with us had sailed to the U.S. from France. It was the couple’s first time on the ICW and they wanted to hear about all the good places to go. They invited us over to their boat for some interesting conversation. Their English was not bad, which is a good thing since our French is non-existent. Apparently we speak way too fast though, as he told us all Americans do. We had a nice time and we are sure we will probably see them again along the way.

We left early this morning so we would be in time for the first lock opening further south in the canal. We were a bit too early so we tied to the wall before the bridge you need to get through before you get to the lock. Then, for the first time, I drove into the lock. I’ve never actually docked the boat before. I didn’t do too bad, but I think we’ll probably still let Bill do it most of the time. We were alone in the lock again and the only boat that got to the free docks in Elizabeth City today.

Once we were out of the Dismal Swamp we were in the beautiful Pasquotank River. The weather was sunny at some points but fairly strong rain a lot of the way. We were always on the lookout for floating, or worse, not floating trees. Bill noticed that one of the floating trees had four turtles on it. We turned around for the picture. One of the turtles got away before he got the picture, as you can see above.

With some help from people on the dock we were able to tie up in one of the free slips that Elizabeth City provides. We were here for Thanksgiving last year and it was a whole lot colder then. Once we were all settled I reminded Bill it was Sunday and we could probably get football on our TV. Unfortunately the channels the daytime games were on weren’t coming in too well. Instead we decided to go for a walk and meet some of the other cruisers that were already here. A sailor that lives on his boat in the marina here was on his way to a bar to watch football there. After we scoped out our breakfast restaurant for tomorrow morning we ended up at the bar with him. The goal was to watch football but the guy was so interesting that we mostly just talked. He reminded Bill of an alternate route through the Outer Banks to take, off of the ICW. We are planning on doing that but Bill is still checking it out.

Luckily the channel that the Sunday night football game is on is working just fine. As it turns out Papa John’s is in Elizabeth City and they were only too happy to deliver a pizza to the bow of our boat. Bill didn’t even have to step off the boat. They told him they couldn’t deliver if we were anchored on the water somewhere. Yeah, we figured that out.

We will spend two nights here. Tomorrow is laundry and supermarket day. Always an experience!